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After a few meetings at the notary's, Cremiere, Massin, the post master, and their adherents took a habit of assembling there. By the time the doctor returned, Dionis's office and salon were the camp of his heirs.
The doctor, however, gave them privately ten thousand francs, with which Massin, who was a great friend of the notary and of the sheriff, began the business of money-lending, and carried matters so briskly with the peasantry that by the time of which we are now writing Goupil knew him to hold at least eighty thousand francs on their property.
Some of the persons who frequented Dionis's salon attributed these manoeuvres to the Marquis du Rouvre, then much hampered in means, for Massin held his notes to a large amount.
There is not, perhaps, in all Paris, a quieter street than the Rue St. Gilles in the Marais, within a step of the Place Royale. No carriages there; never a crowd. Hardly is the silence broken by the regulation drums of the Minims Barracks near by, by the chimes of the Church of St. Louis, or by the joyous clamors of the pupils of the Massin School during the hours of recreation.
When, in the early part of November, 1830, the old man came to church on a rainy day in the new carriage, and gave his hand to Ursula to help her out, all the inhabitants flocked to the square, as much to see the caleche and question the coachman, as to criticize the goddaughter, to whose excessive pride and ambition Massin, Cremiere, the post master, and their wives attributed this extravagant folly of the old man.
Besides, the abbe is one of the most honest men on the face of the globe; he'd give the shirt off his back to a poor man; he is incapable of a base action, and to cheat a family out of their inheritance is " "Theft," said Madame Massin. "Worse!" cried Minoret-Levrault, exasperated by the tongue of his gossiping neighbour.
He knew that the services he had rendered to Minoret, to Massin, and to Cremiere, and the protection of Dionis and the mayor of Nemours would enable him to hush up the affair. He resolved to throw off the mask, believing Ursula too feeble in the condition to which he had reduced her to make any resistance.
So Mesdames Massin and Cremiere with their husbands, the post master and Desire, together with the Nemours doctor and Bongrand, made an unusual and noisy party in the doctor's salon. As the abbe entered he heard the sound of the piano. Poor Ursula was just finishing a sonata of Beethoven's.
These words, heard by Massin and quickly passed from one to another round the ball-room, poured balm into the minds of the three families, who had lived in perpetual alternations of hope and fear, sometimes thinking they were certain of wealth, oftener that they were disinherited.
He carried a cane with a chased gold head. "You are losing your watch," said his mother, kissing him. "No, it is worn that way," he replied, letting his father hug him. "Well, cousin, so we shall soon see you a lawyer?" said Massin. "I shall take the oaths at the beginning of next term," said Desire, returning the friendly nods he was receiving on all sides.
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